One of the points Larry Augustin makes is that languages become more complex as they adapt to a wider range of use cases. The fact that people end up using languages outside of their intended contexts strikes me as a case of not using the right tool for the right job. This is why learning a wide variety of languages is important -- it gives people perspective and opens up new and better ways of solving the problem at hand.
I think programmers, in general, aren't comfortable creating their own DSLs or language-level abstractions to problems, and this often leads less than ideal workarounds.
I think programmers, in general, aren't comfortable creating their own DSLs or language-level abstractions to problems, and this often leads less than ideal workarounds.